Draft of Church

[RedKetchup]

thats what i love the most..... build something from a picture as model

[DesoPL]

Sadly i found it on internets so no idea where come from this building from ref pic.

[rkelly17]

Sorry I'm late to this discussion.

Regarding the picture:

Historically most early Medieval churches were defensible--those crazy Vikings, etc.. In some high-conflict and border areas churches were defensible up though the 14th century and even after. In the mid 16th century wars in Germany cannons were often placed in church towers because this was the highest structure in town. So a fortified church tower would not be completely out of place. That being said, the church in the picture doesn't exactly look right. It might well be of a building built in the Romantic era in the 19th century to look like the architect's idea of what a Medieval church ought to have looked like. A lot of Medieval buildings were rebuilt in the 19th century and "improved." Pre-Gothic Medieval churches often had squat towers (saved money, didn't fall over) but the top of the tower would normally be built so as to house a bell. The main tower or towers were also most often on the "West" front (the "front door" end) rather than at the crossing since it was harder to build a tower that wouldn't collapse at the crossing.

Sorry to be pedantic. I spent a life time studying and teaching this stuff.

[elemental]

No need to apologise, that's very interesting and helpful.

Do you have any good pics you could share that could be used as inspiration for model-builders?

[rkelly17]

No need to apologise, that's very interesting and helpful.

Do you have any good pics you could share that could be used as inspiration for model-builders?

Again I am very, very late back to the conversation. Here are some pictures of churches built by "Transylvania Saxons," German people sent by the Holy Roman Empire to what is now Romania to anchor the Eastern border against the Turks in the 12th and 13th centuries. I found these on Wikimedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Saxon_fortified_churches_in_Transylvania). Photo one is by vutu and is under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Photo 2 is by Márton Ildikó and is under the  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Romania licensce. Photo three is by Zsolt deak. These churches are at one end of the fortress church spectrum, but there were many others throughout Europe not so different from these. Generally speaking, as time went on and areas became more settled and urbanized the churches and monasteries focused more on art than defense, but even into the 16th century church towers were known to serve as cannon emplacements during sieges.

[Fellow Villager]

that's great, really